Category: TechCrunch

In recent years hardware has appeared to track your gym workouts. PushStrength and GymWatch are both devices that will measure your reps as you grunt and build those muscles lifting weights. A new kid on the block is Beast and it’s currently trying to raise $60,000 on Indiegogo. This little device differentiates itself by being suitable for all exercises (not only a few) and by… Read More

Looking to harness the flood of data streaming from every networked and sensor-enabled smart device, computer, and machine that circumscribe our modern world, FuturePerfect Ventures has launched a small venture fund to focus on the bedeviling problem of big data. Read More

Apple has hired another luxury brand exec away from an established brand. Patrick Pruniaux, VP of sales for watch company Tag Heuer, will join Apple on Monday after seven years in the world of luxury timepieces. Pruniaux, second from the right in the above photograph, joins the company just as talk of an iWatch has risen to a dull roar. Read More

Here’s a novel idea for watching the fireworks: use your eyes. See, the Fourth Of July is when we celebrate the birth of our nation by blowing up a small part of it. But when the urge to pull out your camera phone strikes you, instead, leave it in your pocket, throw your arm around the person next to you, and just be present in the moment. You’re never going to look at those… Read More

Just two weeks after Fab.com announced the acquisition of One Nordic – a Helsinki, Finland-based maker of furniture, lights and other home deco products — the online design store is moving swiftly to the next stage of its new strategy to focus more on original goods: it’s launching Hem, a new line of customizable, “affordable” furniture and products,… Read More

So … have you heard about Reservation Hop? I mean, it’s not quite the hottest topic on Twitter, but among the folks who have heard about it, the idea seems to have unleashed an impressive torrent of malevolent creativity. The idea, basically, is that Reservation Hop will help users get a table at in-demand restaurants. How? The company will make reservations in advance, and then… Read More

Just because you weren’t invited, doesn’t mean Facebook can’t help you crash the party. Facebook Events on the web got a slick visual overhaul today that includes a new “Events For You” tab that recommends gatherings it thinks you’ll enjoy, even if no one invited you, friends aren’t going, and you’ve never been to the venue. Rather than just being… Read More

Let’s see if we can do this without making any puns.
In May, California Democratic Congressman Mike Thompson sent a letter to the Internet Corporation for Assigning Names and Numbers (ICANN), asking that .wine and .vin domain not be assigned to “any applicant,” provided that worries concerning protections against cybersquatting can’t be resolved.
Congressman… Read More

Ready to head on down to (virtual) South Park, and have yourself a (virtual) time?
Looking to brush up their virtual reality skills, a team of designers has recreated everyone’s favorite quiet little mountain town for exploration with the Oculus Rift. Read More

We’re thrilled to announce that legendary founder and investor Peter Thiel will be joining us on stage at Disrupt SF 2014. From PayPal to Founders Fund, Thiel has set the bar for success in Silicon Valley, and this will be the second time he’s spoken at our conference. We’re glad he’s back.
Thiel made the first outside investment in Facebook in 2004, and was an early… Read More

The latest data from Comscore regarding the United States smartphone market isn’t great for Microsoft. The company’s Windows Phone platform managed no growth, ending the May period with a 3 month market share average of 3.4%, the same level that Comscore reported for the platform in February. Android was flat, Apple picked up 0.6%, and Blackberry lost 0.6%. Android and Apple,… Read More

Atlassian, the company behind developer collaboration tools like JIRA, Confluence and HipChat, has long had a strong presence in the enterprise, but the company today announced two new products specifically geared at this market. Next week, Atlassian will launch JIRA Data Center, the latest version of its JIRA project management software with high-level customer support offerings and… Read More

Three years after Facebook acquired Beluga and turned it into Messenger for smartphones, its dedicated chat app today got a version specially designed for iPad rather than just running as an enlarged iPhone app. Messenger for iPad features a multi-window interface showing a list of threads and your current conversation at the same time. Messenger had over 200 million users as of April… Read More

Android Wear, Google’s new smartwatch platform powering wrist-computers like the LG G, Samsung Gear Live, and Moto 360, now has its own companion application. The app, also called Android Wear for simplicity’s sake (?), is available from the Google Play app store, allowing watch owners to configure various settings and voice actions on their device. The app today offers some… Read More

Lua, the mobile first communications platform for any workforce, has today launched a brand new feature of the product called Insights. Insights is a metrics platform that will allow clients to see in real-time the way that their employees are communicating and gauge that against the success of the company. Lua launched back in 2013 out of TechStars to bring better communication tools to… Read More

Startup General Cybernetics is offering an unusual twist on the web browsing experience with a new product called Streamfully. Once you install the Streamfully extension for Google Chrome, you can start hovering over links that you see on the web, then Streamfully will display previews of the page that you’re about to click to. For example, if you visit the TechCrunch homepage, you can… Read More

Publications like The Times of London, the FT and the New York Times have been hammering away at paywall-based business models that let them make money not just from traffic-based advertising but getting users to pay for the content they read, while newspapers like The Guardian have eschewed the idea on their website but opted for apps where payments are in place. While the basic… Read More

Salesforce.com today announced a new mobile reports and dashboards tool that runs on their mobile Salesforce1 platform. The goal of the product is to give salespeople access to information on the go, presented to them in a customized fashion to meet the unique needs of each individual user. Salesforce customers have told them, it’s great to have access to data at their desks, but very… Read More

Some people are paying up to $120 per session to get yelled at twice a week. Those people have personal trainers. Fitmob, the company known for funny group fitness workouts like “Weapons of Ass Reduction” and “Drop it Like a Squat,” is now getting into the game with the launch of a new personal training program called MobTribes. Its goal is to get you out of the gym… Read More

Those interested in how our culture shapes and is shaped by the software we use every day should check out “App: The Human Story,” a documentary project on Kickstarter that hopes to give an in-depth look at the impact apps have had since their introduction with the original iPhone in 2007. Read More